


Red Ricochet

by YawningOverTheTapestries



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Invisible!John, M/M, One Shot, Remembrance Day - Freeform, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YawningOverTheTapestries/pseuds/YawningOverTheTapestries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one becomes invisible, what they leave behind lives a life somewhat different to what it once was.</p><p>Sherlock seemed to know this, right from when he first laid eyes on John. And on Armistice Day, he's gifted with a reminder of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Ricochet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [we can go wherever we please](https://archiveofourown.org/works/891769) by [stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy). 



> The soul of this fic is inspired from something very close to me, being it about all those who fell on the battlefield for us, and I wanted desperately to write it for you. I think now's the right time.  
> I hope it's not too angsty!
> 
>  
> 
> Lyrics from Somewhere a Clock is Ticking, by Snow Patrol
> 
> Neither the song, nor Sherlock belong to me.

The pearly November sun poured lavishly though 221B's windows, soaking the living room in whiteness, giving the place a bright openness it rarely felt, especially at this time of the year. It's colourlessness, though, as an overture of a long winter, carried a coldness with it, and Sherlock, a blue-shadowed outline stood at the window with his violin, the austere, golden harmony of Schubert's _Serenade_ singing off the strings, seemed to chase it off. For the moment.

John, with eyes to the window as well, stood unmoving like a quiet pale statue, save for his eyes - blank and dark and embittened, full of a foreboding at what he could see.

He didn't notice when Mrs Hudson poked a head round the door, though Sherlock did, judging from the slight leap of a note at the sound of her voice.

"Watching the precession, Sherlock?"

 

 

_I've got this feeling that there's something that I missed,_

_Don't you breathe,_

_Don't you breathe,_

 

 

Without a blink Sherlock plucked a string, a sharp twinge of sound that seemed to sum up his feelings, probably at the prospect of being disturbed.

"You do have a nice view of it from there."

She left him alone afterwards to resume busying herself. Sherlock didn't put bow back on strings, but cast his blue-jade eyes down, properly gazing across the river of people and poppies winding past Baker Street, a small tributary slowly running through this slice of the city to join the main gathering at Whitehall, the congregation growing steadily all morning to make it in time for eleven, paying their respects en bloc. A mellow narration of it came humming from the television, though nobody was really listening to it.

Sherlock let his head bow in a subtle, reverent attitude, with a somnolence John could almost feel.

"Aren't you going?" His voice was a rustle of falling leaves.

"Join the crowds? It'll be a fight to get a decent scrap of space. Tedious." Sherlock was just as slight, his deep bass tone darker than usual. An almost mournful sound, in all honesty. And he didn't look up either, another highlight of that opinion of his.

 

John noiselessly looked up at Sherlock's emotionless hatchet face; there was little to see that gave away any emotion, and Sherlock of course was wonderfully masterful at preventing them betraying him. But he'd deliberately let those words slip. Let them be heard by John.

People never saw or heard John Watson, therefore didn't look or speak to him. Except Sherlock - what ghosts ordinarily evoke from their presence is fear, surprise, disbelief, sometimes a scoff at the prospect - a set of footsteps made by a thing that doesn't stand on this ground. A voice made by something that can't speak. Not in the least, the idea that ghosts still occupy this world.

 

 

_Something happened that I never understood,_

_You can't leave,_

_You can't leave,_

　

 

"I want to go, Sherlock, I want us both to go."

John's sapphire eyes, normally glossily opaque, sparkled for the briefest of moments, as if they'd been held up to a torch, to be seen by eyes that lavished attention and dedication; a flicker of anticipation amongst the jadedness.

An unseen hand laid on Sherlock's still arm, but he felt it through the sleek fabric of the tartan dressing gown.

Sherlock didn't react, though. Just kept his eyes to the road.

On that road were what John had been missing, today of all days, Sherlock didn't need to see him to know.

 _In a manner of thinking, you're a lucky one, John._ Right from when Sherlock first heard John Watson's name he'd known, there are so many that take to a battlefield and never live to leave it, at least, not in the bodies they were used to having: real, solid bodies that could feel pressure and temperature and pain, and could be seen and touched and held by other people. It's a life enough people take for granted.

 

　

_I could do almost anything to you._

 

John took his for granted, until he landed on Afghan soil, and began a chapter of his life that changed him. Teaching him how to endure a pain on the body and soul unbelievably worse than anything anyone normal otherwise would have to experience. And to still fight on for Queen and Country, with death and destruction all around him, and working itself into him.

A soldier and an army doctor. He's taken lives, and saved them. He's dealt death to plenty of people, and given hope to people at the verge of losing life. At least, he'd done so ever since he began his tour of duty, and had to finish when he physically could not. At the result of a bullet at impact in his shoulder.

A memory not really one to spend too long thinking of. Lying helpless on the burning sand with fluid redness spilling out and pooling into a blazing rubicund island round him. John could contemplate being a vessel, being continually filled during his time here, until he'd been hit himself, and cracked open.

It would take him a long time to heal, and that wound never left him, etched into his skin like a fleshy medal, a trophy of survival for what he'd endured.

But it had all physically dealt a huge blow on John. Since the moment the searing heat of the bullet burning him made him drop to the ground he'd began to fade from view, losing the solidity of his body. No, he wasn't dead - he couldn't be dead if he still left footsteps after where he went, and still spoke with a voice, albeit a much weaker one.

He was lucky. He hadn't died in the war.

 

"We'll go later."

 

Sherlock finally looked up at John, and what he saw made him drop his breath.

His poor friend looked like grief itself. A messy manifesto of pain and anger and remorse, deep rooted graveness that could make someone of a weaker spirit start crying. He didn't look like John Watson, like that.

Sherlock blinked, several times, drawing in a cold inhale, his eyes wandering shakily back across the room, before back to the window, at the precession languidly moving along, letting his violin slide out of his fingers and onto it's stand.

 

 

_Every second, dripping off my fingertips,_

 

 

John was left alone to stare unseeing out the window, while Sherlock removed himself to finish getting dressed. And at his return John turned to give all his attention to the detective's tall, svelte form, cutting off the pour of light in the room, his silhouette sharply drawing against the softer backdrop.

As always he was carrying himself with marvellous grace; despite his indifference to the pandemonium he was brimming with respect and dignity, stepping towards him with each move fluidly, carefully measured. In his long delicate fingers something sparkler-bright caught John's eye. A flash of the most vivid colour John had ever seen, burning in those pale hands like a flare.

"Sherlock, this is personal. This is important. I'd be an undeniably barbaric bastard if I don't go, at least to show my face - that is if anyone sees me. And call me a coward if you like, but I don't want to go on my own... Sherlock, you know the story, don't make me explain again - "

"I know, John."

Their two voices were polar opposites; John's as muffled as falling snow, pale and almost husky, a light tone, and trembling as if fighting back tears; Sherlock's darker, richer, warm like a pulse on a still body, steady and respectful, and carrying smoothly across the space of the room, stilling the wavering ghost before him.

"I'll take you. Once the peak of the main event has passed. The crowds will be thinner by then. I can't predict what people will do when they see us, but at least we'll have a little more time to ourselves."

 

Sherlock crossed the room, John at his side, a darker smudge against the dark lintel and soft shadows.

"Sherlock... I don't need to explain, do I?"

A moment crossed over them both. A moment they'd both shared hundreds of times before, of affirmation of what they were, of admiration at one another for finding the other such an excellent match.

"You've never had to. Why would I have any doubt of you, John?"

　

 

_Waging war,_

_Waging war,_

　

 

Sherlock took a fold of John's half-done jacket, and pinned one of the bright things on his lapel.

"I know this is important to you. That's why I'm taking you."

 

 

_I could do almost anything to you._

 

Sherlock pinned the other one on the front of his Belstaff before putting the coat on.

They were poppies. In spite of himself, John gave a little smile.

 

_Another soldier says he's not afraid to die,_

_I'm scared,_

_I'm so scared,_

 

 

Outside, the stunning splashes of carmine were bolder, stronger on their chests, in both their eyes.

John kept a deliberate pace behind Sherlock, his footsteps soundless behind him.

 

Those cardinal flowers did shine beautifully in the field John could see, just as Sherlock did, always did.

Everyone, everything else was dull and grey and cripplingly boring. Sherlock was indeed the only bright thing in John's world, his crystal-bright eyes and cream coloured skin, against the deep russet-raven of his unruly curls, and the dark palette of the clothes he favoured. The blaze of him, and the storm he left behind him, flying off the swirls of his long trenchcoat, utterly infectious.

John couldn't help but keep lingering at Sherlock's flank. Sherlock was more than different. Sherlock was _magic_. His brain sharper than those blade-like cheekbones of his, stripping the world back, piecing through everything he saw and heard, and what was real became _really_ real. At least, at a crime scene.

　

 

_In slow motion, the blast is beautiful,_

_Doors slam shut,_

_Doors slam shut,_

　

 

That brain that could trace the trail of a murderer with incredible precision, could tell the full story of a person from the finest detail of their outfit and possessions... that very brain told him that John Watson is very much alive, just as real as everyone else. Despite being invisible to human eyes.

The man thought he was going insane, but he couldn't deny it.

 

Stood before clusters of blossoms heaped around them like scattered rubies on tarmac, Sherlock did what he always did, pacing langorously like a lion, fingers steepled beneath his chin. His blue eyes had clouded a little, together with the haunting deathlessness swept over his sharp features making him look like he was mourning too.

 

 

_A clock is ticking, but it's hidden faraway,_

_Safe and sound,_

_Safe and sound,_

 

 

"Sherlock?"

John's voice, a light plume of smoke, thinned away in the cold air.

Without turning, "I know, John. I imagine it doesn't get any easier each time."

The breeze played with Sherlock's hair, making the tails of his coat waltz round his long frame, giving him his mystical air again. A boldly black flag against a swathe of paleness, betraying the heavy warm solidity of his body.

John wound his arms round Sherlock, fisting one hand into the soft blue cashmere at his throat. "If caring was an advantage, we'd have won the war a bloody long time ago."

 

Sherlock let his arms fall back to his flanks, laying one round John, even though he could feel just a coldness, only the slightest substance to the smaller man.

John, meanwhile, sank a cheek against Sherlock's chest, right by the drop of vermilion pinned proudly against the tweeded black.

John didn't feel insubstantial any more, no longer light like a milkweed puff ready to blow away.

Tethered to Sherlock, this powerful being, this dynamic force of energy, John felt, well, himself. He'd always been an anchor for loved ones, to keep them earthbound.

　

 

"They are people we all ought to be proud of, Sherlock. They're headstrong, and steadfast at the same time, making immense sacrifices in every respect, for the good of everyone at home, depending on them."

Sherlock rested his chin against what he could feel of John's fair head, feeling deep reverent feeling for every word. The soft tone, deliberately intended for Sherlock alone, made them seem even more precious.

 

_Lest we forget._

Sherlock knew he never will. John would never be a ghost to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I agree, this is a weird 'verse. But I strangely like it. It fits nicely into the theme of this fic.
> 
> This one's for you, Stitchy, with love.


End file.
